The King Is Dead
by Mediancat
Summary: While patrolling, Xander and Buffy have a celebrity encounter of a decidedly unusual sort.


Okay, now, you're all just not going to believe this one. Xander and I were walking and chatting, heading to the Bronze, when I saw a vampire talking to a woman about, say, forty feet in front of us. Though tell the truth, I would've noticed this guy if he'd been 200 feet away and I'd been wearing dark sunglasses. Bad idea for a vamp to stick out in a crowd, not that I'm going to go educating them or anything. He must have weighed 250 pounds if an ounce -- not many fat vamps around, you ever noticed? have to ask Giles why sometime -- and he was dressed in an all-white jumpsuit.

All he was doing at the moment was talking to the woman, not really threatening her, and for that matter she seemed happily wigged to be standing there. Point of fact, she was stammering and stuttering, " . . . can't beLIEVE it," she squealed. "You don't look any older . . ."

Xander looked at me and whispered, "Hypnosis?"

I shook my head. "No kind I've ever heard."

The vampire turned to look at us . . . and both Xander and I busted out laughing. We'd seen all kinds of vampires before . . . but this one topped 'em all. An ELVIS impersonator?

"Rude to interrupt a man during a conversation, little lady," he said. My god, he had the voice down pat. "And why are you laughing anyway?"

"Have you looked at yourself lately?" Xander said. "Oh, that's right, you're a vampire, you can't."

The woman said, "V-vampire?"

"Shouldn't've done that, miss, interrupting me when I'm chatting with one of my fans like that. I was about to offer her the chance at eternal life by my side, and you mess it up like that."

Great. Not just dead, but delusional. "You really think you are Elvis, don't you?" I said.

"I don't think I'm Elvis, little lady; I AM Elvis. The one and only. And yes, I am a vampire. The King is dead." Then he bowed his head and when it rose again his game face was on. "Long live the King."

I ran up and threw the confused woman out of the way, but Elvis caught me with a fist to the face. Xander ran up and took the woman and led her further down the street, muttering something about an escaped mental patient who attacked people as he went.

Pulling out a stake, I shook my head and faced off against the fat vampire. One thing I had to keep in my head was that fat for a vamp did not mean slow. We dodged and weaved a few times; he caught me with a blow to the chest, I got close -- so close! -- to the balls with a kick, at which time he glared at me and said, "Miss, that wasn't ladylike."

"I'm not a lady," I replied, "So it all evens out." I was restraining myself mightily from making any bad Elvis references. If Xander were here I knew I'd be hearing them at a rate of about one every five seconds.

We kept circling, and suddenly he grabbed something from under his jumpsuit and threw it at my feet. Not ready, I slipped and fell. As the Elvisvamp approached, I snuck a quick look at what he'd tossed. A peanut butter and banana sandwich?

I braced myself for a kick upwards, but never had to make it. Elvis stopped, in obvious pain, and as he exploded into dust said, "Thank you. Thank you very much."

Then all that was there was Xander holding a stake. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "Elvis has left the building."

As he gave me a hand up I stuck out my tongue. He answered, "That's a fine way to treat someone who just took a vampire to heart-stake hotel for you. Did I return him to sender, or what?"

As I stood, I said, "Ouch."

"Ouch? You hurt, Buff?" he said with concern.

"No, I'm okay. The ouch was about your jokes."

He winced in fake pain. "C'mon now, don't be cruel. You really did seem all shook up."

"Xander --" I warned.

He took the hint. "So, you think he was the real deal?"

"No idea," I answered. "That's a question for Giles. Who knows? Maybe this is why there've been so many Elvis sightings in the last twenty years or so. It really was him."

"Just keep it away from Wesley and faith," he said. "You know they have suspicious minds." I started to object again, but he was going full-tilt. "Or Oz. You know, he ain't nothing but a hound dog." I elbowed him in the side. "Hey! What'd I say?"

"Knock off the Elvis jokes, Xander."

"Just saying how great thou art, Buff."

"Xander," I said as we turned towards the Bronze, "Shut up or I'll turn you into a hunka hunka burnin' flesh."

"Shutting up now."


End file.
